Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

who here uses a bio filter for primary fish water control on their tanks?.
i use them hard and have gotten quite good at building them. the newest ones are built from 30 gal blues, filled with oyster shell and closed cell foam, with a pillow fill top to keep the solids handy for disposal. a garden pond pump 300gph or less fuels it. each 500 gal tank only has around 250-300 gal on a normal day. i have kept up to 100 pounds of fish in a tank with one of my filters. its better to keep 50-75 pounds but the filter will handle 100 if needed. once installed they tend to cycle wide for 2 weeks then they settle down and keep things some what close to calm.
over the years i have found bio systems just keep fish better than anything else i have seen. other bait dealers use the flush and refill method, and they see much worse losses in their tanks,hauling,and the end retail users.

Hey BW,
I could be wrong but I think most people here use grow beds for water filtration...

I'd love to see construction photos of your filters

Yeah how about some pics bigworm?

ok i do need another one i will just have to have daughter photo doc the build.
i know folks use grow beds for the filtration, but my end of holding/raising fish made me dependent on bio media filters. now i am incorperating AP to my exsting systems. hoping that bio media and DWC will pan out for me and add value to my operation. trying to keep 1000-1500 pounds of tender little babie fish alive while hauling some of them and redumping , keeping up with daily chores of aqua life have made me a fish water expert of sorts...a self taught one. ok thats not true my mentor taught me the basics of bio systems, i just added to it...lol.
one thing he did teach me was not to share to much info about what and why. we have always held a competive edge over the other bait dealers because our fish help up better than theirs, and we would not incure the amount of losses at home that they would.
i think i would like to share with you all here tho, so i will get cracking on some pics of my place and some home made equipment. as daughters photo time allows

If you are using DWC then my understanding is you will need bio filters as well to provide an area for the bacteria colony to develop/live and turn ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate.

Yah - you can't ask questions but not provide anything back, that's not the idea!

If you've got biofiltration happening already, I can't see why DWC growing some veg (or aquatic plants or something) wouldn't work.

exactly!

here is some pic's of a working bio-unit. the filter is filled 2/3 of the way with oyster shells. and then a layer of closed cell foam...and finaly topped off with pillow or craft poly fiber as a disposable solids catch. the fiber only gets changed when it needs to, but the other stuff needs not to be disturbed.

Water looks nice and clear Big Worm. So what sort of bait fish do you sell. Are they for fishing or for feeding aquarium fish?

As well as my beds, I have a biofilter on my tank also. The reason for having the biofilter is that in winter I turn the beds off for most of the time to minimise heat transfer.

My biofilter is of similar size to the ones you run, but because I do not have to filter as much crap as you, I run mine with a rotating arm at the top with water runing through clay balls before leaving the bottom. I also have worms in the biofiler to help clean any build-up. I've not cleaned the biofilter out for approx 2 years and there is no obvious sign of a problem (ie the water coming out is clear).

I'll be interested to hear a bit more about what you are doing there.

What other kinds of filling can be used?? iv seen in other post about using Scourer pads, cutting up poly into small bits, also using gravel, filter wool etc.

would using a mixture of all these things make for a good bio filter??? Layering Gravel then Scotch pads then gravel etc

i use whats on hand or available. the oyster shell could be swapped with large gravel or plastic wiffle balls{small balls with holes...kids toys} bags of pvc ribbons. the bottom layer is just organic surface area for bact. to grow on, the water needs to freely flow past and thru it. the next is the foam rubber like the stuff couch cushions are made from. once again its just a breeding ground for the bacto..now heres where it gets tricky....some foam rubber kills fish...make sure and test in a small container with a few fish..NOT YOUR TANK FULL OF FOOD FISH! i think the bad foam was made from/with for-mal-doe-hyde the top layer is the actual filter, the polly fibers trap solids very well. they only need replaced as the water becomes cloudy. my bio unit is just a living bacteria colony ready to breed and grow as needed.

It really depends what you are trying to achieve. The 'bio' part of the filtration is of course about the bacteria and the ammonia convertion process we are all well familiar with. For that surface area to house the bacteria is the key. I've gone with clay balls because they are relatively light, have heaps of surface area due to the way they are manufactured and for this application are also cheap in my view.

It then depends whether/to what extent you also want to achieve mechanical filtration (ie removal of solids). Big worm is no doubt using the fabric fill to achieve fairly fine mechanical fitration - it will be removing some fine stuff that the oyster shell will not. It will also be aiding him in not clogging the oyster shell meaning he only needs to clean the fibre instead of the whole lot. As well as providing good surface area - the oyster shell will also be helping big worm to buffer the ph in his system - as it is a carbonate.

I personally wouldn't be stuffing around with scrubbing pads and stuff like that unless I was very restricted in terms of the size of filter I could use. In my case, similar to big worm, my filter (though I acknowledge he has several) holds nearly 200 litres of media. Unlike Big Worm - mine is wet/dry not wet. The main reason I have done this is simply to reduce the weight and also not have issues with loss of water via sump overflow if the power goes off.

sorry - was posting at same time.

yea vb right on the spot there. i'm not much for explaining while typing..and drinking beer